Glimpses of the past

It was so familiar. Like I was here only a month ago. Yet so much had changed. I felt like I was a fifty year old man visiting his college after many years to get his kid enlisted or something. It took me some time to realize that nothing had changed physically except maybe that Milan da’s wasn’t there anymore. It was just that the faces had changed. The familiar faces. Familiar faces whose names I didn’t know…hell I didn’t even know what they studied…I just knew them. I knew that they were always there. And they knew me…they knew that I was always there. That was how it was with the place. The little open space outside the Worldview Bookstore. The “lobby”…that’s what they call it I think. I never used to so I don’t really know.

It was the same whitewashed walls, the same dirty floors smeared with coffee and the coffee cups strewn all around. The glass doors…the strange metallic rail…on all sides. I remember playing “kumir danga” there…the rails were the toughest yet coolest “danga”s to take refuge on. And oh yeah…Souvik…the perpetual “Kumir”! It was amazing how he always managed to get caught and have to become the “kumir” and then spend the entire game like that! And of course there was Gorai jumping around like a hyperactive squirrel! And I always used to be the one composing rules to make the game more exciting…and Shruti, she was always looking out for whether I was cheating in any way! Once we were playing quite late into the evening and we had people we never knew joining us in the game! And us dashing around always got the idlers pissed…generally the stupid gals wearing too much make up and giggling around…and the boys who always hung out with them and made stupid jokes. None of us gave a damn about them though…we played our hearts out!

Well I stopped at the same old metallic rails…there was a lot more that had changed. The bookstore…the same old guy was there. I don’t know if he recognized me or was he just being cordial but he gave me a smile…and when I smiled back he asked me where I had been for so long ( I don’t really think he knew HOW long though). “Just busy”…that’s what I said.

Coming back after almost 2 years, I was supposed to feel quite at home wasn’t I? After all 2 years isn’t too much of a gap…besides, I often passed by…just that I never bothered to stop and sit down. And whenever I had passed by, it had always seemed the same. But now that I was sitting there…on the rail to the right of the bookstore, I felt I was in an all new place. I knew no one. Except the guy from the bookstore. Most people I knew were still in college…in the last year of their courses. But I saw nobody…and it was a normal working day. There was no dirthe of people…but I knew none of them. It was weird. I recalled how I always used to run into someone I knew in the past. Be it 10 a.m or 7 p.m, there was always somebody there if not everybody! Debayan, Ria, Arunopol, Maitreyee, Rupsha, Toko, Ayesha, Deb, Priyanka…someone was ALWAYS there! But now? Nobody! Not even anybody I knew just by face!!! That’s when I felt a little strange…like I didn’t belong there.

Its funny how a place that was so close to my heart refused to accept me now. I remember spending some of the best moments of my college life there. That was perhaps the place I used to be most comfortable at times. I always hung out there. And I always felt welcome there. And now it was so different…I got up and I went over to the ledge on the 1st floor of the Arts Deprtment. I still had about half an hour that I had to wait out.